My Mother and Stepfather are regular attendees. And I dismissed this new age type church at first(as harmless). However recent events have made me very concerned for my family.

My mother was introduced to Landmark Education by fellow RS members. She seemingly came around and agreed with me that Landmark is bad news. However a few weeks lately she is enrolled in Neuro Linguistic Programming. This time being taught right on the premises, I am told they have 'influential speakers' regularily.

She doesn't seem to have a critical thought process left in her at all. I'm tempted to blame RS for this. And the people at the church seem very nice. I think now that they're scum. She was offered a job with world financial group a while back, apparently also a multi level marketing/pyramid scheme.

Who knows what else is going on, but i'm convinced now that RS is just a haven for the naive and they're bilkers.

When i tell my mother there's no empyrical evidence showing that NLP has any benefits I get no counter argument but rest assured she payed for it and she thinks it's great.

So I'm not feeling particularily kind towards RS. Not feeling particularily kind towards R.W.Emerson either(I had read here some musings about how he's one of the better parts of RS's influences).

“the vision of genius comes by renouncing the too officious activity of the understanding, and giving leave and amplest privilege to the spontaneous sentiment,”

This guy had some weight in the Romantic movement, i'm not that familiar with the history but it sounds like they were ditching the "church" for greener pastures. Good intentions gone awry perhaps, see my above comments hehe ...

"he was stating in precise terms an idea familiar to Blake and to the romanticists of every land—the elevation of enthusiasm above judgment, of emotion above reason, of spontaneity above discipline, and of unlimited expansion above centripetal control"

This notion is exactly the kind of SHIT I experience with my mother as of late. She is an emotional basket case.

Can anyone give me a reason why I should not despise and loath with vigor the screwball church of religious science? (yeah guilty by association, well someone can take me on here)

I begin to question why freedom of religion is enshrined in constitutions in the west. I guess people would likely stage massive and destructive revolt in response to the repeal but honestly are we not educating people well enough in school? I thought this was the age of enlightenment. Feels more like a new dark age.

Seems to me that the advances and advantages of secular society are being taken for granted wholesale by the masses, the educated and uneducated both.

My mother has a university education with honours, she won a scholarship and many awards. Her study was sociology and psychology. How can she be reduced to such a state?

Losing family members to New Age flim flam has upset me greatly. Media has no interest, police no interest, BBB out of their purview. This site is the only place i've had any recourse and merely to vent at that. I have an email to make to California's general attourney's office soon; I'm not a citizen of the united states granted don't know what will come of that, yeah about LEC. I could exhaust myself writing them about RS, NLP, mass marketing schemes, ultimately to what end? At some point comes acceptance hopefully. I'll just lower my expectations and preserve my sanity ... and i'll keep reading here.

TY RR